Today I'm promising you a new perspective.
Unless perhaps you're Norwegian.
I'm guessing today's episode will be full of new insights for you.
But we're not going to do a cultural or historical podcast.
That's not our purpose, but one on leadership, as you know.
So you will leave here with new ideas on performance
and results coming from a new perspective.
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DL for long distance leader.
And with that, let me bring in my guest.
There he is.
You can see his smiling face as I introduce him.
His name is Anders, inset.
He is known as the Business Philosopher.
He is a Norwegian born writer, deep
tech investor and former elite athlete.
He is a fifth time Spiegel bestselling author, author of six international books,
and has been recognized by thinkers 50 as one of the influential thinkers
in the fields of technology and leadership in the years to come.
He is a trusted sparring partner and advisor for global leaders
and top executives.
Founder of the Nordics Group, Global Institute
of Leadership and Technology, and the Quantum Economy Alliance.
His latest book is The Viking Code The Art and Science
of Norwegian Success, which we'll be exploring today.
Anders, welcome to the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
Kevin, thank you for having me.
Joining us from Germany.
Well, you're from Germany. Are you live in Germany?
That's where you are today. I assume.
Yes. I'm, I'm, I live in Germany.
I've been living in Germany for 25 years, but I am a born Norwegian, so,
98.5% Scandinavian to be.
98.5%.
And everybody I'm saying his name is Anders.
And he was very gracious to me
when we were before we started and said, well, that's how you say in English.
So, I guess I'm okay, but that's he says
German, Norwegian.
He lets me say it in a way that works for me, for the English speakers.
So thanks for being here.
You know, when I got your book, and was pitched your book, I saw the Viking code.
I thought, well, this is different.
This is interesting.
And it is, And I'd like us to start.
I often ask Anders.
I often ask people, tell us about your journey.
But really, what I'd like you to do is tell us a little bit
about the journey in the book.
Because they're interconnected.
Because it feels like this is a book you were born to write.
So tell us a little bit
about your journey, in short, and how it connects to this book.
Yeah.
Thank you Kevin.
I mean, I'm very glad that you that you saw that
it was a book that came very natural to me.
I was writing a book about capitalism, and the outlooks of the economy.
And all of a sudden I noticed that my countrymen, the Norwegians were,
winning medals in all kinds of sports that had nothing to do with snow.
I should say, not just skiing.
So I was like, yeah, this is and then my country to to be,
to be fair, I mean, it's not a country that value high performance.
So, I was very curious how that came to be.
We noticed the and Stoltenberg, running the NATO
and negotiating complex geopolitical issues.
We have leaders like the, CEO of the Norwegian
pension fund, Nikolai Tung, and who runs a great podcast.
And, and all of a sudden, you had this flare of a kind
of sort of modern Viking vibe on, on performance.
And I was very curious about that.
So I, I called a good friend of mine, a coach with the training,
center of the Olympics.
And I asked him, you know, how how do these athletes perform at that level?
I do like a magic code recipe.
And, I started to dig into that.
And having a a sport background myself, I,
I was curious about, like, the new, recipes for, for,
for, for for sports because I like, I invented a lot of sports, but,
when I started to, to to think about this, I noticed that
the interesting topic was, was not that they were the best at their game,
at their finite game of winning, but they were also the most liked.
They were very popular.
They practiced team and fair play and, and that to me was a very nice,
interesting narrative because it might seem as a contradiction
that collectivism can serve individualism.
So that, to me was the basic idea that also serves into the philosophy.
So in the first part of the book, as you have seen, it's very autobiographical.
It's kind of sort of my journey, to growing up and,
going through the various athletes and the phenomena.
And in the second part of the book, we get deeper into the philosophy of a,
a life of living this kind, as he would say in German,
the vitality of life, the active way of living.
And we'll look at how the Viking code can be applied
to business and politics and education.
So the book is, as you have seen, broader
than, talking about the topic of high performance.
It's a life philosophy for progress.
And I actually think that human beings
were born to, to create and come up with better explanation.
Progress is a very fundamental thing of our lives.
And that's why to me, this book was, was very important
because we live in a time, as you know, of a lot of reactive,
performance and active, and that wears you out various
if you can have an intrinsic motivation to perform, to act, to take action.
We can do a lot of stuff.
So that was the motivation and also how this came,
very natural to me to write, this book.
And so that's interesting because, you know, I would say
that the first part of the book is really very much about performance.
But I would say the whole book is more about success.
And of course, success is the word in the subtitle.
So let's let's start there.
How do you define how do you, Anders, define success?
Yeah, I
mean, that's a great follow up question because again,
I can speak from a, subjective experience.
So, I was a professional athlete.
I built my companies.
And from an external perspective, many people would say, you are successful.
You know, they would admired things that I would have achieved.
I would assume, and I was, you know, doing well,
in, in a definition of traditional KPIs of success.
Right. But I didn't feel successful.
So today when we talk, I feel really successful.
For me, it's a subjective experience because today I define success
as progress.
I am privileged to get up in the morning every single day, and I get to learn.
I get to, evolve and develop myself through new skills
and practices and tools.
And that is the definition in this book.
It's not about, you know, a book where you can define based on materialism.
So, various the Olympic gold medals and winning the world
championship is something that is, you know, that you should celebrate.
I mean, we need goals and visions.
The actual magic is not in the finite definition of the goal,
but the infinite path of progress.
So that is an essential learning that these individuals
and these athletes that serve into the community
and the collectivism, they look for everyday progress.
I write about, micro ambitions,
and in the book and that is, to me, a philosophy
that takes you into the liberal state in an active life,
because you get to experience the magic of your own experience.
So you are not a, you know, philosophical zombie reacting to tasks
and things taken from the outside of likes and shares and Ferraris and yachts.
But you are actually a human being in a collective environment
where you get to shape your own path and experience progress.
So that to me, is how I would define success of, you know, filling your life
in order to have a fulfilled life coming from an internal path.
Yeah.
I want to come back to micro Ambitions a little bit more, but I want to highlight
for all of you who are watching or listening,
something that Andrew said when I first said, how do you define success?
He said, I get to learn, I get to evolve,
and I want to highlight the word get like, I don't have to.
I get to it's a choice that you've made.
It's it's a, it's a way of thinking about life to create that active, vibrant life.
And and using that word get, I think says a lot.
I mean, I'm not surprised because I've read most of the book.
But it's not where everyone starts.
And anything you want to say about that specifically.
Yeah, very. A good point.
First of all,
and I think that, you know, I get to
but but it is also a path of how do you learn to experience that?
You know, we are in a very reactive society.
So we have been on a path of progress as a humanity,
as a species for the past 50 years.
We have maximum is the art of being, right?
It's like your opinion.
My opinion is a very, very binary way of thinking.
And if we put that on steroids, adding AI and technology to it,
we become, you know, the server, of this progress.
And that can be very exhausting that that is why we have to take off
and retreat, because we don't experience, life.
We don't experience the state.
We don't experience that we get to achieve.
If you play the piano,
you have that song that you have been practicing and masking.
You experience the slight progress of your everyday achievement.
That's like the compound interest of everything in life.
And that compounds into what we could see
from an external perspective to be called success.
But the journey, the micro steps that you take,
if you learn how to experience that, then you have an intrinsic motivation
to get up and write that piece, to write that first sentence, to go to the gym,
to do the thing that you fancy and like.
And you have a very, I would say, a way of shaping your own reality.
And that is you can talk about consciously ness and being present
and all that, but it's very simple that I get to.
Yes, but also it's a part when you seek out,
your own, you know, ordinary experiences.
And value those and being present in them, as you said,
I want to spend some time because I sort of hinted at it in the open.
And after all, we're talking about a book called The Viking Code.
So I want to I want to sort of let
you take us into the Norwegian culture
a little bit, and I'm going to use two things
to do that, two things you talk about in the book,
and I'm going to put it on the screen.
I'm going to let you say it so you can say it in Norwegian.
But you open with this law, this series of things, and it opens up
I've never seen in a book where something is, is laid out
and it's all crossed out right in the beginning.
Every line crossed out.
So it's the law of yante.
It's young to young set up. So.
So what is it in brief?
Because we could take our whole the rest of our conversation just on it.
But what is it in brief.
And then and then why is it important to how do we take that and use that,
even if we're not Norwegian.
Yeah.
Now, in the start of the book, the publisher came back and said,
do the readers get that?
This is not an error, right?
And I said, yeah, well,
Glad I got it. I'm one reader.
I got it. So I, I,
I grew up, with, with the love and with the love
and there are multiple cultural similar phenomena, basically.
In short, it is we should not, you know, stand out.
It should all be we should all be equal.
So you you cut the flowers down to the same size.
You keep people at a grounded level because the groundedness of the value
system, of the collective stance above,
you know, rising out, above the others.
And that's the ethos of the Norwegian culture.
And it has, to me, being a hindrance for very many talents
that have not believed in themselves.
And I'm not talking about that self-belief where you kind of sort of dominate
and you do everything to to move ahead, but
it's just to believe in your own skills in order to have self trust,
to go out in the world and explore and to build relationships.
So access and the muse, and the author wrote this, a hunt about 100 years ago.
And it has been a very, very fundamental,
part of the communication media.
And everyone in Norway can refer to this.
So, you know, gentle love and was in his way or her way, right?
Because it did something that was not seen as, you know, collective.
It was, you know, putting it was even to, to be a very individualistic type.
So if you look at this game of soccer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic,
the world class soccer player, he was from Sweden, but he would not have
come from Norway because he was eccentric, he was extravagant.
He had all these facets.
And the Norwegian was too big to be polite and all of that.
And in the beginning of 2000, we had some,
athletes and some players amongst them, the world, leading
chess player Magnus Carlsen, who was a bit different.
He came out with 12.
I'm going to be the world champion.
And and he like he went he didn't confront the value system, but he felt different.
And, it was.
I'm going to stop
you just for one second because for for many people who are listening,
I mean, our, our podcast data with demographics would say
that the largest single group of people listening are in the United States.
And if we heard a story that started out at age 12, I'm
going to be the world's best.
And then they eventually became that,
we would say, yeah, that seems pretty darn normal.
Not so normal in Norway.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it wasn't, now it is.
But there were some years where you had world
class performers that also had some, you know, difficulties
with team play and media and, and the generation that came after that
seemed to have somewhat overcome this law of young because today
we have very self-confident, strong,
very often young male individuals.
A lot of these, players in sports are young men,
and they're very tied to their fathers as mentors.
They have a very solid foundation, even if they break through
and become world class athletes, paid, hundreds or millions.
They are still,
you know, in a long term relationship with their high school girlfriend.
And they have that coming back to the town where they grew up.
And so they stand on the shoulders of giants
of this cultural ethos, but still they have managed to rise above
and have that individualistic self-trust to say, I'm going to go out
and I'm going to not, you know, conquer and rape until,
like the old Vikings, we are modern Vikings.
We're going to take the collectivism, spread joy, spread team play.
But I'm going to become the world's best at what I do.
And that is the the phenomena that and I must point this out, Kevin,
that even the Norwegian themselves are not aware
of this, success factor.
I see today that,
Norwegian are looking for the next level and they're starting to learn,
look for these
expertise models of specialization.
But but this is at the time that we live in.
We live in a time of an era of generalist.
We live in a time where things change very rapidly.
So you need to be able to adapt and to work together.
So from the American Declaration of Independence,
we today have kind of like a declaration of interdependence
where we commit to the collective in order to grow our self.
So I think that is, you know, the essence of overcoming the law of junta
has been very important for the rise of many Italian
from coming out of Norway.
So I guess we're two thirds of the way through our conversation.
And I haven't had you tell me what the Viking code actually is.
You've been talking about parts of what what's inside of it.
But how would you define the Viking code?
Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's good work to me
just as well without the Vikings and Norway as a country, because I think.
It makes a good hook for the book. Right?
I think because it's very authentic, because it's actually telling of something
that is there.
But I think serves also very well for a global, ethos and,
philosophy for a living or an active, vital life.
And we need that today, I think.
So the Viking code, is has a lot of tangible,
you know, concrete things that you can do,
which I talk about various, you know, aspects of how this came to be.
But to me, it is a life philosophy.
So it serves leaders,
in every section of society.
I think it's a, very good guidance to lead your life
and also to influence others, because this is what they have all done.
The people that I mentioned, be it in sport, education, politics or in society
in general, it is is a philosophy for leaders of change,
for leaders of progress, of positive progress, for humanity.
So I think it's a it's a philosophical touch to it
that, to serve as a, as a Viking way of living
for a better society, for a society of active human beings
that, understands that we are a part of, collective.
And they also have their own journey, so they do not get sucked into the whole
technological tsunami of, reductionism.
So, yeah, I think that is the essence of of the Viking code.
To me, it's a philosophy, a way of living,
to serve as a as a leader of change, if you like.
So one of the things that you mentioned earlier as,
as a part of that way of living,
and I wanted you to go into a little bit more is the idea of,
the, the micro ambition.
So you hinted at it.
You, you you mentioned the phrase, but tell us more about what a micro
ambition is and how we can use those to live this more active, vital life.
Yeah.
I mean, we are in a world where we do a lot of task, a lot of things, and we,
we are doing our reaction to impulses, in even our media consumption today.
So not we, we are free choice of reflective thoughts.
If you go to YouTube, it used to be, you know, this could interest you.
You know, take your decision you individual you.
But now you just say next video I say yeah, yeah.
And that is, you know, the the dopamine and how we have learned to communicate
through social media
with thumbs up and thumbs down, instant reaction and gratification just serves
our dopamine systems and the serotonin and and the whole shebang.
And then I think that,
coming back to
having achievable small goals and having a smaller task that you set out,
this is what I want to do or this is what I want to let go of, you know?
Yeah, we've never had more time today, but we have packed our life
with a lot of things.
So, you know, you can't make yourself happy or successful, like, just overnight.
And you can
probably never make yourself happy, but you can make yourself less unhappy.
So a micro ambition could just as well be to let go of something.
Just write down one or 2 or 3 things that is sucking energy or holding you back.
And if you take that and you chop that off small slices at a time,
you put yourself in a position
where you can be struck by something called happiness,
where you put yourself in a position to experience
the ordinary wonders of life, to experience that life
progress that you might have on your journey to mastery.
And this is, just becoming conscious about those small step.
It could be to say, I'm going to I'm thinking about writing a book versus
I'm going to write 30 minutes every morning.
Between 6 and 630.
You know, you show up, you're there, you're micro, ambitious,
and some days you get some days you're not good.
And you just continue with that and you experience
all those micro things that you do in those 30 minutes.
And most people, by having that simple micro ambition,
would have more liveliness and vitality
and connectedness to the ordinary life, as most people have today,
because we are just dragged through life, worn out, we have become in
a new kind of sort of existentialist philosophical state that I call undead.
You know, the lights are on, but there are no one home to perceive them.
So this is a way of like taking control and moving that back into life
and continued over time, the outcome of the process
will be the goal and the recognition and the celebration.
But the actual journey, and this is also very eastern
philosophical in a way of thinking, is actually the journey
is where the magic lives, you know, the, the experience of the small steps.
So this is the, the essence of micro ambition.
If we define or when we define success as progress,
the micro ambition is the way to get there,
because we're making small movements in the direction of that progress
and living in the moment.
Being intentional is the word that I would use to talk about that.
There's there's something else in the book. I mean, there's lots in the book.
Obviously we can't get to all of it. Of course.
But there's something else in the book that I don't even know
if any of the other folks that you've talked to about it have even mentioned.
But it's one of the things that I love,
because I think we're of common mind on this.
And that is the role of play in high performance that,
I actually have made, made T-shirts years ago and said, make work, play.
And so talk to us a little bit about the role of play in creating high performance.
Yeah.
Let me start by saying there are multiple ways,
I mean, the command and control in a disciplined way.
It lead academies of historical,
you know, heights of eastern trading mythologies.
They kind of sort of worked in a way, you know, you suffered for ten years,
and you stand at the top of the, pinnacle and you get your Olympic gold medal
and you cry and you say, I've been doing what I love and, you know, my whole life.
And that's, of course, a lie.
You suffered along along the way.
So, but but that's, you know, that it wipes out a lot of that.
I think, in general,
you know, not taking everything so serious.
Letting go, is very important.
But to have fun, to enjoy the wonders of life, our life is a
most likely wonderful journey to nowhere.
And, we are in a society. We,
we are amusing ourselves to death
by consumption of stupid media things that are driving us every day.
And we're not even having fun.
It just wears us out, right? Yes, exactly.
So we are the the the paradox of that is that, you know, we're not enjoying it.
We're getting more depressed of what we, even though we are consuming
entertainment. And then that's a weird thing, right?
So so I think the play, ignore when you in your parents say, you know,
put on your clothes, get out and play, you know, and
and we have started to control and regulate and measure everything.
You know, children want to play on cemeteries on in the forest
and that you don't know how to have all secured playgrounds
that are put into boxes and define the roles where and how to play it.
Right.
So the freedom to play, and the activation of laughter, enjoyment,
I think that's a power source for performance.
And, and I.
Think for kids.
Yeah.
And I think if we stop playing, you know, we kind of sort of risk growing up,
you know, everything becomes like put into a finitude of, of structures and things.
I mean, I'm not saying structure and having like management and stability
and using more technology to be stable, it's very important.
Organizations, many underestimate that.
But I see that in the management part.
So management to me is,
not something that people do.
It's something for technology Z and leadership.
And that's why I like your The Remarkable Leadership podcast.
I think, you know, just the essence of leadership together with trust,
or building a culture are the most essential things today
more than ever, where a lot of people have moved into zoom
and zombie sessions and home offices and what have we not.
So I think that is, you know, leadership and culture,
are the the things that are needed the most.
In business today.
And that requires also some joy and fun and playfulness.
I think I would agree with you.
And I'm going to ask you a question that I ask nearly all of my guests.
I've never, ever had a better lead in to this question
than what we've just been talking about.
The question is, what do you do for fun?
I mean, other than just live an active, vital life,
what specific things do you do?
And for fun.
Yeah, I mean, I get enjoyment from writing.
To me, writing is thinking, and there's nothing more fulfilling
to define the path and ideas.
I've always loved that. I play the piano.
I like, you know, to do sports,
but, the magic and the fun is,
you know, with your children to get down on, on knees and get on eye level
and just observe you know, consciousness in its evolution,
you know, children that are growing up and you just get a lot of power from that.
And it just, you know, gives you a lot of laughter and joy.
And and so I think, you know, that, if I would say I'm going to seek,
a fun, enjoyable moment, I do spend time with my daughters
because I know it's just going to be,
you know, a hell of a ride, and it's going to be,
you know, the little one is going to say things that are just going to crack me up.
And so I think, you know, and living being like,
very privileged to live the life that I do,
and get to do a lot of things that I enjoy if I'm going to seek up fun.
I, you know, I would just go out and play with my kids.
I love that.
And for those of you that are only listening to this, to see
the smile on his face when he's saying that tells the entire story.
So we talked about writing.
Let's talk about reading.
What is something you've read recently or maybe something else you just
you would love to share with us that you've read?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I'm, I'm playing a lot lately because of the advancement
of artificial intelligence moving into singularity that,
you know, as I'm, I'm, I'm invested in quantum tech
and I'm very curious about, like, the end game of that.
So I went back to, to learn about, you know, the evolution of humanity.
And I just came back from debate.
Lee Tippett, is part of the turkey.
It's one of the wonders of, of of life.
The one of the findings that takes us back
12,000 years in history is twice as old as Stonehenge.
And it's just amazing.
No one knows what it is, what it was, and all that.
So I'm I'm very interested in mythology because I think, you know,
it's become very hard to to come up with fictional ideas about the future
because it's so fast and everything you can imagine is already there.
It can be done through technology.
So what will happen if mythology and enlightenment
kind of sort of inverts, right?
What would be a society, for civil society then?
And that, I've been reading a lot of mythology and I like,
a lot about Stephen Fry on
his ethos of the, the, the whole structure of the Greek mythology.
So I was just reading Troy, his book about, you know,
the mythos and, and and and I like that dig into history.
So lately I've been, been playing a lot with that, having spent,
some wonderful days down in Sanliurfa
and then digging into the, cradle of Humanity.
So that's I would say it's one of the things that I'm,
you know, playing with at the moment.
Perfect love that.
Probably the thing you wanted me to ask most is
where can we learn more about your work?
Where do you want to point people in relationship to the book?
Anything you want to tell us about connecting
with you, finding you, those sorts of things?
Sure. No.
I mean, go get the Viking code.
I would love feedback on the book.
It's out.
It's on Amazon, all the online stores, Barnes Nobles,
whatever, or everyone where books can be bought.
My, yeah, most of my sources are found at Anders internet.com.
You can subscribe. To my newsletter.
We are planning a YouTube channel for more content in near future,
and we are uploading a lot of, articles and papers that have been published.
Also around the thinking, for people
that are curious about my investment, you mentioned new artists.
The new artist group is, small advisory and investment boutique, in Norway
that we do, participations and rounds of investment with tech startups.
That's something that I have started to enjoy a lot and do a lot more.
And these days.
But at Anders insert.com you can find the sources.
And the Viking code is also found on Viking minus kokum
or an all the normal bookstores as you know.
And I'm on LinkedIn if you want to link up there.
Of course. Perfect.
So thank you for that.
And thank you for our stimulating conversation.
And, and now it's not just about conversation, everybody.
Now, the question that I ask you every single week, every single episode,
now what what action are you going to take as a result of this conversation?
Because as interesting, as thought provoking,
as insightful as this conversation might have been,
if you don't take action, what was the point?
So my challenge to you is to think back through the things that you either
mentally highlighted or that you wrote down as you were listening and saying,
what action am I going to take as a result?
What will I do now?
And hopefully one of those things is to order a copy of the book.
But beyond that, what specific ideas?
Maybe there's an insight that you got about
micro ambitions that you want to now go do something about.
Maybe it could be any number of things I don't want to excuse me.
Presume to you what it would be.
What I want to do is challenge you to make sure that you ask that question.
What will I do now as a result of what I learned?
Anders, thanks so much for being here.
It's a pleasure to have you.
And I've been looking forward to this conversation now.
We've had it and I'm glad we did.
Thank you so much for having me, Kevin.
And so, everybody, if you enjoyed this episode,
let someone know they should come.
Listen, whatever, wherever you're watching and listening
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